If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Using Amazon.com for data mining...

In the article he describes some of the current work being done by the government to research people foreign and domestic. He then discusses ways that Amazon.com can be used to do datamining on peoples reading and purchasing habits via some scripting and their publicly available wishlist functionality.

Interesting read...

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." - Erasmus
"There is no programming language, no matter how structured, that will prevent programmers from writing bad programs." - L. Flon
"Mischief my ass, you are an unethical moron." - chshBlog of X

Great! Now everyone's gonna know that I wanted a new XBOX and they'll be able to find out where to send it. sweet. Im not really against the patriot act. Cause Im not doing anything shady but im sure we're not seeing the half of it. Just saw this morning that Cannon and Xerox embed pages faxed and printed with itty bitty dots (that you can see with a high powered IR light) that tell you where the doc was printed and the time.

illis while I am not a favorite friend of this gvt. Isn't it a bit much for the gvt. to extend itself as much as it has. The gvt. has become too powerful. This seriously reminds me of something straight out of 1984. ill think of it like today they just want to know what books you are buying. Tomorrow, what food you are buying, next year sometime what time you get home everyday.

It is a sliding slope. THe more power they take the more they achieve and ultimately want.

While I say this I am afraid the gvt. is probably watching what I am doing.

Anyone else catch the story of the librarian that wouldn't give the F.B.I. the book checkout list for everyone at the library. It was something like that. A/y they wanted to arrest her, but had nothing to get her on.

I am just waiting for the chips in our wrists. Those will be like secret decoder rings.

Well hey Phobia, we are streets ahead of you then, because we have rewarding store cards that let them know what food we buy, and we have a thing in London called an oystercard which is a magnetic proximity card which you hover over a terminal on buses and trains which will let them know which bus or train you got on to go home, and also let them know with the aid of your credit card whether you stopped off for a pint on the way home.

I myself always phone them up to let them know if I went to see a friend, as they haven't cracked that one quite yet.

I think in this day and age, it is easy to get too paranoid about things that are beyond our control. And yes while you can choose not to use reward cards or these magnetic oyster cards, and not have a credit card, it does restrict your choices. I would rather do what I want and to hell with them, if they are really that concerned with how many sheets I use in the Lavatory, then that's great, a man's gotta have a hobbie.

Very interesting article though, I didn't read it all, as I am not familiar with a lot of the techy parts, but I got the gist.

Originally posted here by JonnyFrond Well hey Phobia, we are streets ahead of you then, because we have rewarding store cards that let them know what food we buy, and we have a thing in London called an oystercard which is a magnetic proximity card which you hover over a terminal on buses and trains which will let them know which bus or train you got on to go home, and also let them know with the aid of your credit card whether you stopped off for a pint on the way home.

We have the reward cards and so on in the US as well. While the government prolly has minimal involvement in this, it would be no different for them to ask for this information on your purchasing habits than it is for them to request your library records or the google web logs.

"When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes." - Erasmus
"There is no programming language, no matter how structured, that will prevent programmers from writing bad programs." - L. Flon
"Mischief my ass, you are an unethical moron." - chshBlog of X